DPA/Paris


RIGHT BEHIND IT: Maria Sharapova of Russia serves to Ayumi Morita of Japan during the French Open tennis tournament at the Roland Garros stadium in Paris. (Reuters
Andy Murray and David Ferrer showed no mercy yesterday to reach the second week of the French Open, with the seeded pair grinding up opponents in quick straight sets.
Rafael Nadal tightened a Spanish stranglehold on the bottom half of the French Open draw yesterday, while Andy Murray set up a last 16 round clash with Richard Gasquet.
The top seed coasted into the fourth round with a lop-sided 6-1, 6-3, 6-4 win over qualifier Eduardo Schwank of Argentina.
Fourth seed Murray seemed like a changed man in his crushing 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 defeat of Santiago Giraldo of Colombia. Two days earlier, the complaining Scot could barely walk for a set and a half due to back spasms but somehow managed to psyche out flustered Finn Jarkko Nieminen for a second-round victory.
Against Giraldo, Murray was in cruise control, advancing with nine aces and 31 winners in just over two hours while breaking three times against the number 50.
Murray will be playing the round of 16 at Roland Garros for the fourth consecutive year after reaching the semis in 2011 where he lost to Rafael Nadal.
Ferrer put former top 10 Russian Mikhail Youzhny through the wringer 6-0, 6-2, 6-2.
So dismal was the performance that Youzhny scrawled “SORRI” with his foot in the clay after finally winning his first game of the contest in the second set.
Two more seeds followed the template with straightforward wins as eighth seed Janko Tipsarevic of Serbia beat Julien Benneteau 6-3, 7-5, 6-4 as the Frenchman played in his first event since breaking his elbow six weeks ago in Monte Carlo.
Number 12 Spaniard Nicolas Almagro beat Argentine Leonardo Mayer 6-4, 6-1, 6-2.
In the women’s draw, 2010 champion Francesca Schiavone exited at the hands of Varvara Lepchenko as the unfancied American produced a 3-6, 6-3, 8-6 upset.
The Italian got the first signs of trouble early from her
26-year-old opponent, ranked 63rd, and vying for an Olympic team spot along with other hopefuls including Venus and Serena Williams.
Schiavone needed nine set points to close out the opener, then lost the second set as Lepchenko, who had never been past the second round of any Grand Slam on four previous attempts, levelled at a set each.
The Uzbekistan-born American took a 5-3 lead in the third set, with Schiavone closing the gap through a break of Lepchenko on a double-fault for 5-all.
But the Italian dropped her serve in the next game and Lepchenko held on for the win in just over three hours, with 33 unforced errors and 31 winners.
Lepchenko next plays Wimbledon champion and fourth seed Petra Kvitova, who defeated Russian Nina Bratchikova 6-2, 4-6, 6-1.
Yaroslava Shvedova of Kazakhstan beat Spain’s Carla Suarez Navarro
6-4, 7-5 while on the men’s side, Spanish sixth seed
Kvitova finally broke free in the final set against Bratchikova to line up her next match with Lepchenko.
“Every game what we played was really close (in the second set).
In the first game she had two break points, so it was really close and every point was really important. In the third set, I just tried to play my game again.”
Holder Li Na, seeded seventh, had to rally to beat American Christina McHale, 3-6, 6-4, 6-1.
Li will face Kazakh qualifier Yaroslava Shvedova for a place in the quarter-finals after a momentary scare in the match against McHale.
“She’s a very dangerous player,” said the 30-year-old Li, admitting she let the American, 10 years her junior, dictate the play in the first set.